MAAC Weekly Roundup: Jan. 19

This week almost every MAAC team will eclipse the halfway point of conference play, but plenty has stood out from the first 40% of the season.

Here are some numbers to know from the past week:

30 – The number of free throws that Rider graduate student Teddy Okerafor compiled in Thursday night’s double overtime win over Marist. It was the most free throws attempted in a game in five years. In the process, Okerafor broke the conference record for made free throws: making 25. “I don’t know what to say, 30 free throws is crazy to me,” Okerafor said on the record attempts.

37.5% – That is the percentage of two-point field goals that the Quinnipiac Bobcats have made this season, which ranks last amongst all Division I teams according to KenPom. For all their rebounding prowess, they have had plenty of chances to get rebounds considering their shooting ability.

5 – The number of teams holding opponents in conference play to under a point per possession. Those are Siena (0.92), Saint Peter’s (0.93), Monmouth (0.95), Iona (0.98) and Niagara (0.99). Of this group, only the Hawks held their opponents to under a point per possession last season.

13.6% – Those are the odds that the Hawks win out in their remaining conference games, according to KenPom. Monmouth is currently favored in all of their games, the lowest being a 58% favorite at Siena on Feb. 1, and is projected to have a 17-3 record.

Tweets of the Week

Turns out our own Ray Curren was right, in that this will cost Jordan Washington two games as the school suspended him:

“Chris’s nose is about this swollen right now. If he slaps that hard, he should try MMA. Nobody smacks and then the kid’s nose is this big downstairs right now.” – Monmouth head coach King Rice on Washington’s hit on Brady

“Of course it bothers me. I’m not going to sit here and lie. Yeah, that hurt a lot.” – Iona senior A.J. English on losing their 26 game home win streak at the Hynes Athletic Center

“It means that my teammates get me the ball and coach (King) Rice allows me to take about 450 shots. You’ve got to take that many shots to get to 1,000 points. It means a lot getting it in college my junior year because I didn’t get it in high school.” – Monmouth junior Justin Robinson on becoming the 22nd 1,000-point scorer in program history

“This is the team we have. This is the team we’re going to play with every single game. We have to give ourselves a chance to win a lot. They just came out and got on fire to start the second half.” – Iona head coach Tim Cluess on their loss to Monmouth on Friday night

“Brett made as many good shots in practice yesterday as I’d ever seen him, then he says ‘My back hurts’ and two hours later he’s on the floor and can barely move. He just said something twinged. We did not think Brett Bisping was playing today when we came here this morning. He got a little loose and said he wanted to try. In the first half, it tightened up again. In the second half, he said if you put me in and don’t take me out, I think I can try. I said, ‘Well, looks like you’re in until you foul out.’” – Siena head coach Jimmy Patsos on Bisping’s 18 point, four rebounds, two block game against Quinnipiac

“We’re stuck in it,” Moore said. “More stuck in it than any other Quinnipiac team I’ve had here. We have resilient, tough kids, who are hurt and bruised by this offensive funk. But we have to keep working at it and we’ll eventually find ways to put a better offensive team on the floor.” – Quinnipiac head coach Tom Moore on their 63-53 loss to Canisius, their third straight loss in conference play

“Our main focus is defense, defense, defense. Defense wins championships. Offense gets you the points to keep you in the game, but defense wins the game.” – Manhattan senior RaShawn Stores on their victory over Niagara

Ryan Restivo wrote the America East conference preview for the 2015-16 Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook. He covers the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, the America East conference among others for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo or contact Ryan at rrestivo[at]nycbuckets.com.